(UPDATE: The National Weather Service has revised the forecast since this article was published. CLICK HERE for the update)
The river forecast for the lower Mississippi still holds, calling for a 20-foot crest around 1:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon. As the surge from what is expected to be Hurricane Barry piles up Gulf of Mexico waters off the mouth of the river, forecasters say the river will have nowhere to drain, and unseasonably-high water will start to back up in the river channel.
With the river levee right around 20' in some spots, the forecast doesn't leave much margin for error.
Derek Boese, Chief Administrative Officer for the the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, says most of the metro area will be protected, and the Army Corps of Engineers is already working on temporary flood-fighting measures at known low spots.
The Corps of Engineers even has a public tool to let citizens see how levee protection stacks up in their area. The interactive map shows high and low spots all along the hurricane and river flood risk reduction system.
Click here to view Eastbank levee heights.
Click here to view Westbank levee heights.
Boese says the lowest areas of the river levee are at the Industrial Canal lock gates. He says if the river overtops there, it will just spill into the canal, which is protected by its own system of flood gates.
